Reason 6: Better Buses

Posted by Joe Cullinane184pc on March 30, 2016

Joe has ran numerous campaigns against local bus cuts and is committed to delivering better bus services.

Weeks after Joe was elected as a Councillor for Kilwinning in 2012, Stagecoach announced that they were cutting their number 27 service from every half hour to every hour. The 27 service is the only bus that serves the Whitehirst Park area and is also used by residents of the Corsehill and Irvine.

Joe immediately launched a petition against Stagecoach's decision and gathered hundreds of signatures.

Despite the support the petition gathered, and Joe exposing that changes to the Bus Operators Grant, which Stagecoach had used to justify their decision to cut the 27 service, had actually 'derived a financial benefit' for Stagecoach running this service, the cut went ahead.

The experience demonstrated to Joe the need for bus regulation. In the 1980's, Margaret Thatcher scrapped bus regulation everywhere in the UK apart from in London, resulting in local bus services being run in the interests of profit making bus companies rather than to meet the needs of local communities.

Joe has campaigned for bus regulation ever since and when Labour MSP Iain Gray proposed a private members bill on bus regulation, Joe invited Iain along to public meetings in Kilwinning and Bourtreehill.

As the MSP for Cunninghame South, Joe will campaign for better buses. He will go into the Scottish Parliament and work to deliver the bus regulation that will hand back some democratic control over bus services which will enable local politicians to drastically change how bus services are run - so they put community need before bus company profits.